On My Way - Chapter 19

Chapter 19 - How Can the Moon Roll Around in the Dust of the World?

Cheng Xia said, "You’re different. You’ve already managed to leap out of that environment."

I shook my head: "There’s no difference."

"Back then, my mother was willing to sleep with a man just for a pretty dress. To get a project finished, I haven't had much of a bottom line either." I thought of that night spent pacing outside Old Feng’s house; it wasn't dignity that had made me hesitate.

It was the moon that lived in my heart.

"And my father, he’s lived a life without much to show for it. Whenever he sees a rich person, he rushes over to bow and scrape, then returns to boast about his 'connections'." I said: "When I was a kid, I looked down on him so much. But do you know what they call me in Africa? A 'great eunuch.' Because one look from my superior is enough for me to arrange everything in advance, to the point where I’d happily crawl on the ground just so the boss’s leather shoes don't get a speck of mud on them."

I started to laugh: "Who can say I didn't inherit that from my father?"

Cheng Xia didn't laugh along; he just watched me quietly.

I wanted so badly to be Cheng Xia. I wanted, more than anything, to become him.

He was the same with everyone. In school, he could talk and laugh freely with his mentors, getting along like buddies. Later, when his supervisor didn't like him, he never felt anxious about how to appease him; he remained open, upright, and neither servile nor overbearing. Even with the lower-level workers who looked up to him, he never showed that "affected friendliness," just a very natural, polite sincerity.

But I couldn't do it. I had secretly tried to imitate him, but I felt like I forgot how to even speak.

My parents had imprinted their sense of inferiority deep into my bloodline. I didn't blame them; this was simply the survival law of those at the bottom.

I looked at Cheng Xia, remembering his lost, bewildered face during that ugly scene at the market—it stung me like a needle.

"Even what you say you like—this so-called 'vitality'—is nothing more than the desperate struggle to keep one's spirit alive because life has become unsustainable. I am no different from the people in that market."

"So Cheng Xia, you say you want to be with me... do you regret it?"

Cheng Xia shook his head. His face was hidden by his fluffy scarf, leaving only his eyes, which shone like cold stars.

"You will regret it," I said. "The most realistic problem is that I can never truly abandon them, especially my mother."

My mother viewed me as a debt to be collected.

Yet, from the day she divorced, she had sent me six hundred yuan in child support every month. Six hundred yuan wasn't much, but her stall only cleared a little over a thousand a month.

My father was a piece of work, but the money for me to go to S City came from him, and the asset verification for going abroad was scraped together by him. He wanted me to do well. Even though he knew I didn't want to support him, he still wanted the best for me.

This carp of a girl was destined to drag a long chain while trying to leap over the Dragon Gate.

That was fine.

But by being with me, Cheng Xia would have to face a mother with a face full of blood after being beaten, a greedy and vulgar father and stepmother, and my grandmother, who collected trash—and truth be told, the old lady was not easy to get along with.

He was the moon. It was enough for the moon to look down upon the world from on high.

How could the moon roll around in the dust of the world?

Cheng Xia didn't say anything. I sighed, helped him tie his scarf, and said, "Go home. Remember to apply your medicine."

The New Year’s fireworks had already faded away. I walked back to the hotel, stepping on a thick layer of firecracker debris.

Grandma and my father had gone to the countryside to visit relatives, taking the opportunity to brag that her granddaughter had made it big.

I had adamantly refused to go, saying I wanted to eat at my mother’s place.

There was no one in the room now. I took a shower and lay on the bed without a hint of sleepiness, and began to open my phone.

The sky slowly turned a fish-belly white, bathing the room in a warm yellow glow.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

It was Cheng Xia. Under the orange morning sun, his face looked dreamlike and ethereal.

He said: "Let’s go. I want to give you a New Year’s gift."

...When I went downstairs with him, I thought I would see a whole truckload of roses or balloons or something. Wasn't that how they did it on TV?

...I absolutely did not expect that five hours later, I would be standing at Shanghai Disneyland.

"You’re in a bad mood. I don't know what I can do to make you feel better, but I think being in a bad mood at Disneyland is better than being cooped up in a hotel room," Cheng Xia told me.

"Tell me the truth, how much did this actually cost!" I asked for the hundredth time.

During the New Year, buying last-minute plane tickets, with all the peak-season surcharges stacked on—it had to be an astronomical price I was afraid to hear.

"It’s a price I can afford to pay to buy your happiness. It’s worth it." Cheng Xia shrugged, still refusing to answer.

"So how much was it, exactly!"

"Let’s go. I heard this is the happiest place on earth." He pulled me inside.

...It really was happy. Everyone was laughing. Girls were taking pictures in beautiful dresses, boys were lining up to take photos with Jedi knights, and children were running around screaming, holding Mickey Mouse-head ice creams.

It was just like a dream.

I whispered: "But my grandmother is coming back from the countryside tomorrow."

"There’s a flight tonight. I guarantee we’ll be home before Grandma returns," Cheng Xia said. "In the meantime, just enjoy yourself."

No, wait—was he crazy, or was I?

A moment ago, I was in the Northeast with snow-covered ground and dark clouds pressing down on the city; the next moment... I was inside a fairy tale.

I once had two coverless fairy tale books that my grandmother had dug out of a trash can.

In them, Cinderella would have a beautiful dress to wear, a stranded Snow White would meet kind dwarves, and the brave little tailor would have a donkey that spat out gold coins.

I couldn't even recognize all the characters yet, but I already felt sad. I vaguely understood that it was all fake.

I was very kind, but I lived a very bitter life. There were no birds circling me and singing, and when I stretched out my chapped little hands to pick up a soda can from the muddy water, no fairy godmother came to help me.

But now, those peach-red, pale yellow, and powder-blue little houses, and princesses with brilliant, swirling skirts, were all appearing before my eyes. I had entered this soft, dreamlike world.

Cheng Xia and I didn't go on any rides.

First, because the lines were too long.

Second, because he was afraid of heights.

We just walked around slowly, listening to him explain the design ingenuity of Disneyland—the petal-shaped layout, the spatial division methods. Occasionally, a little girl in a princess dress would bump into me, but she wouldn't cry; she would just get up in a daze and rush off because she was in a hurry to get to the next attraction.

That day in my memory is golden. All the scenes are kept in a box filled with fine, shimmering gold sand, glowing with a dreamy, soft light.

Cheng Xia was right; in a place like this, it’s hard not to be happy. I could even say that this was the happiest, most relaxed day in my memory.

Later, we left early and ate private-kitchen cuisine in an old Shanghai Western-style villa, enjoying fatty, sticky, fresh, and sweet eel and black truffle sea urchin rice. At the end of the trip, we took a taxi to the far-flung Shanghai Poly Theater.

This was a design by Cheng Xia’s favorite architect, Tadao Ando.

"Tadao Ando is a master of using light. Look, he keeps everything tightly sealed outside the walls, then lets the light be released through the cracks." Cheng Xia was his usual self, becoming exceptionally excited whenever he talked about his favorite works: "He captured the light."

"That’s amazing!" I said. In reality, I only thought it looked like a giant, translucent brick.

We sat on the steps outside the Poly Theater. It was extremely quiet, as if only the two of us were left in the whole world.

Cheng Xia suddenly said: "You were right. I really am not a good fit for you."

"When I was studying, I always felt like I was something special, but when I truly faced reality, I was nothing." He said: "When my mother died, it was the first time I realized my own weakness. Yesterday was the second."

I said: "No, that’s not true. You protected me. Besides, this didn't have anything to do with you in the first place."

Cheng Xia said: "Of course it does. Because, I want to be with you."

I froze.

"I didn't answer yesterday because I was thinking about what I could actually give you." He smiled self-deprecatingly: "I am selfish and weak, and I’m not the kind of partner who can stand side-by-side with you in battle. What can I give you?"

It was a moonless night, and the biting cold wind was harsh. Cheng Xia’s confession sounded remarkably like a business negotiation.

"I can take on your family, as well as your inferiority and your anxiety. You can boldly go do what you want to do—whether you leap over the Dragon Gate or make a mistake, I will be your backstop; I will catch you if you fall."

He took a brown paper bag he had prepared in advance from his bag and placed it in my arms.

"What is this?"

"My salary and bonuses are on this card, and the password is there too. The savings, real estate, and stocks my grandfather left me are all here. There are two properties in Shanghai among them; I can take you to see them."

I was shocked beyond measure: "Cheng Xia, have you lost your mind? Take this back."

I pushed the paper bag back, but he didn't take it, and it just fell to the ground.

In the soft light and shadows of the buildings, he watched me quietly and said: "I only want you to stay by my side."

There was a nearly insane obsession in his eyes that I found strangely foreign.

I took a step back.

At that moment, I remembered what Cheng Xia’s father had said to me:

"For so many years, Cheng Xia never showed any interest in you. Suddenly, he wants to be with you? Have you thought about why that is?"

"To put it simply, has he ever told you he loves you?"

No. Whether it was last time or this time, all he had said was: I want you to stay by my side; I don't want to be apart from you.

He had never once said: I love you.